Provoke
by AtobeLover
Summary: Ryoma can't stand fourteen days of sweltering hot holidays without Seigaku's tennis practice, so by a chance meeting Akutsu becomes his company. Sakuno is forced to watch as Ryoma falls for someone else, but doesn't mind much in the end.


Title: Provoke

By: AtobeLover

Summary: Ryoma can't stand fourteen days of sweltering hot holidays without Seigaku's tennis practice, so by a chance meeting Akutsu becomes his company somehow. Sakuno is forced to watch as Ryoma falls for someone else.

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis.

A/N: Yeah. Ryoma and Akutsu. Feel free to re-check the summary, the pairing in the description, my A/N. The best way of checking if this really is a Ryoma/Akutsu fic is by reading it, though. No flaming, thanks. If you review, you'll be my angel forever.

I had lots of fun writing Akutsu swearing his mouth off. And I don't know why I like to write kissing scenes so much. Is that weird? The ending parts are from Sakuno's point of view, because I don't think I'd write a sappy make-up scene from either Ryoma's or Akutsu's perspective.

* * *

Summer vacation.

Heat.

Shimmering air.

Ryoma hates it.

Born in December, he loves the snow and the cold, and watching Karupin curl up in his blanket for warmth. Playing tennis is more enjoyable in winter.

Summer is sweaty, hot, icky, humid, and it's not even five minutes after a cold shower (or as cold the water will get in _this fucking heat_) that you start sweating again, needing a shower again.

The only thing good about summer vacation is the tennis practice which never stops. Morning tennis, afternoon tennis, evening tennis.

But then it stops.

For an entire two weeks.

Ryoma hates it so much. His dad's too lazy to get up and play nowadays, or maybe it's the lethargy from the heat that's getting to everyone. On the last day of practice before the break, he asks Momoshiro if they could continue playing at the street courts, but Momo's busy, going out of town. Kikumaru and Oishi are going to some doubles training camp. Ryoma is slightly envious. Their tennis isn't stopping.

He doesn't ask the other regulars (it's the lethargy, really).

It's not that his tennis _is _stopping, but the street courts don't have much talent to defeat, you know?

He goes there in the end.

The first day of the break, he takes his sweet time waking up.

It's not sweet, really, because when he does wake up he thinks _I'm late for practice,_ but remembers, _oh. No practice._

The morning goes by. Ryoma watches a match on TV, tennis of course, and his hands itch to grab a racket and hit the hell out of the ball (but there's no one to hit the ball at him).

"Oyaji," he drawls. Nanjiro looks up from his magazine. "What, brat?"

"Play a match with me."

Usually, Nanjiro's the one to coax Ryoma into playing, so this turnaround of his son's nature is surprising. "No, brat, we'll get fried like an egg if we go out there in this heat."

Ryoma doesn't know who to blame for this sudden laziness of his dad's, the heat outside or the aircon in the house.

"Yeah, well, watch this egg get fried." Ryoma decides to walk out of his house in the heat. Knows it's a bad decision. Is the king of bad decisions, so he walks out without a backward glance.

It's the street courts that he targets, and finds nobody there. So nobody's as insane about tennis as he is. He wants to swear badly and loudly but Momoshiro didn't teach him much beyond _fuck this shit_.

He waits half an hour, sitting there. The sun beats on his back as his hair grows uncomfortably hot and wet under his cap.

Finally giving himself up to a fortnight of utter boredom, he gets up, only for a hand to grab his shoulder and push him back down onto the bench.

"Oi, brat."

This voice is familiar but unfamiliar.  
"What the fuck are you doing out in this fucking heat?"

Ryoma wants to turn and look at whoever is taking this comfortable tone with him, but that gripping and heavy and large hand is still on his shoulder, and it's not really friendly.

"Waiting for somebody to come along and play tennis with me."

The hand lightens. Ryoma steals a glance at the person.

It's that monster from Yamabuki, he realizes. Akuma something. The guy who'd served stones at him. The guy who he'd defeated soundly in the Prefecturals.

"Wanna play with me, then?" Akuma says.

"Sure, Akuma."

"It's Akutsu, you bastard."

Oh.

"I don't remember the names of people I defeat, I don't have time to remember that many."

"Getting sassy, are we, bitch?" Akutsu has a racket in his hand. Ryoma glances down at his hands. Oh, great, he came to a tennis court and forgot his racket and sat there in the sweltering heat like some idiot.

"Give me a racket," he tells the tall monster.

"Do I look like I have more than one?"

"You behave like you have a stick up your ass, maybe it's a tennis racket." Momoshiro taught him that one. Ryoma has no regrets.

Akutsu's face is priceless. Ryoma feels like smirking for the first time that day.

"I'll beat the living hell out of you, brat," Akutsu says and raises his racket, and Ryoma's not scared, it's the first time since practice yesterday that he has a chance of playing good tennis.

"Why are _you_ here, anyway?"

"Same as you." Akutsu sits down beside Ryoma and doesn't make a move to hit him, so Ryoma decides to provoke him a bit more.

"Who'd be as insane as you to come and play tennis in this heat?"

Akutsu turns his head slowly to look at Ryoma, and says, "I'm looking at you, bitch. In the tennis court. Beside me. In this heat."

Ryoma knows that, but Akutsu didn't get provoked. The conversation is slowly fizzling out, and Ryoma doesn't want to pass up this chance to play.

"So you'd play with me, right, Akuma?"

"_Akutsu_."

"Whatever."

"Maybe I would."

"Give me a racket."

Akutsu sighs and pushes his racket into Ryoma's hands. Ryoma's surprised. Akutsu usually was the instigator at fights. Why was he giving up?

"Fuck this heat," Akutsu leans back, using his hands as support behind him. "I don't even want to play tennis anymore, it's that fucked up."

But Ryoma wants to play. "But I want to play."

"Find some other bitch to fuck," Akutsu says. "I don't know why the hell I came here when all I was going to do was go home again."

"Don't go, not now," Ryoma sighs, too. "I'm bored."

"I'm not your entertainment, asshole."

"You swear too much," Ryoma complains. This heat's draining him faster than Inui's Penal Tea.

"You wish you had a cuss vocabulary like mine, bitch."

"Stop calling me bitch, I'm a man."

Akutsu gives him a once-over. His scary eyes rest for an uncomfortably long amount of time on a certain place, which makes Ryoma go a bit red, makes him want to take back whatever he said and keep getting called _bitch_, but then Akutsu smirks at him and says, "Think I'll believe you, bitch?"

If the heat takes away some of Akutsu's violence (judging by his behavior it'll probably take away all of it), Ryoma will thank the summer and give it the tiniest bit of gratitude possible.

"Let's go somewhere with shade, brat, looks like you're going to get a sunburn."

"Ne, shut up, Akuma."

"Fuck off, bitch."

They go to the arcade, with the machines that spit tennis balls at them. Akutsu lets Ryoma keep his racket and takes one of the arcade's, and they spend the rest of the afternoon trying to smash balls into each others' booths.

The next day Ryoma goes to the arcade to find Akutsu giving everyone within a hundred metre radius of him the evil eye. He looks like what Ryoma calls him - a demon, with the terrifying eyes, the silver hair upswept, and the Yamabuki tennis club jersey with the sleeves rolled up.

"Che, Akuma, stop it or you'll never get a girlfriend," Ryoma says, walking over to him, favorite red racket secure in his arms.

"Like I'd meet any girl actually my type," Akutsu snorts. It's clear he's itching to lay his hands on Ryoma for the _Akuma_ thing but it's also clear that he's willing to let it slide.

Ryoma plans to fully take advantage of whatever this weakness is that Akutsu is showing.

"They're showing a movie called _Wimbledon_ at the theatre in twenty minutes, Akuma, want to go?"

"Call me Akuma one more time and see if I even look at you, fucker."

"Akuma, wanna go?"

"You're paying for my ticket."

And they go. It's more of a love story than a movie about tennis. Ryoma's bored out of his _mind_, fuck this summer.

Akutsu's watching intently, though. Ryoma yawns loudly.

"Shut up, brat."

Ryoma yawns once again, this time for real. "Mada mada dane," he says, and shamelessly goes to sleep in the theatre, with Akutsu beside him.

When he wakes up, the movie's long over and Akutsu's scared off the theatre attendant who came to shoo them out and he's leaning on Akutsu and was _very _busy with his mouth if the bruise on Akutsu's arm is anything to go by.

"Do you fucking give hickeys in your fucking sleep or something?" Akutsu asks. "Sucking away on my skin like that, bastard, the bruise won't go for at least a week now. I tried to wake you up but you're as fucking responsive as Sengoku when he's drunk."

"Che, you just need to roll the sleeves of your jersey down to hide it, Akuma."

"_Shut up, bitch._"

Maybe Akutsu wasn't focusing on the whole need-to-hide-it thing. It looked like a mosquito bite, anyway, next time Ryoma saw it (the next day).

Akutsu looks bored. Ryoma tries to Twist Serve Akutsu's face to see if something violent happens but Akutsu just smashes it back at him.

"You were gonna use me as a stepping stone, didn't you say so, brat?" Akutsu just asks him the fourth day of Ryoma's break, where he finds the Seigaku regular lying under a tree, carrying out his favorite pastime.

"Che, you're still sore over that one, aren't you?"

"Did it work? Did I help?"

"We won the Nationals."

"What the fuck should I do about that?"

"Well, I'm telling you that you helped. Somewhere deep down."

Akutsu is silent. He's leaning up against the tree, long legs bent at the knees, arms behind his head.

"You're an arrogant, insolent fucker, Echigoya."

"Echizen."

"Echigoya."

"And then you get annoyed if I call you Akuma. Mada mada dane."

Ryoma dozes off.

Akutsu gets up and leaves, but comes back with Ryoma's racket from his bag, and plays around with the string tension until he wakes up. Then they play tennis some more.

* * *

It goes on for a few more days.

Ryoma doesn't want to admit it, but he wants to see Akutsu every day.

Is that wrong?

It's the guy who almost took him out of tennis forever. He sometimes has nightmares about the stones Akutsu served flying toward him.

But there are no excuses for how Akutsu's been anything but violent to him the past week.

Ryoma closes his eyes and sighs. He has to find out somehow.

* * *

The eleventh day, Akutsu finally gets violent.

Ryoma has been slowly and steadily wearing away at what little tolerance Akutsu has, and when Akutsu finally snaps, it's a terrifyingly beautiful thing.

"I'll fucking break your arms, you bastard," Akutsu snarls, pushing Ryoma down on the ground. The stone is searing against Ryoma's back. The street courts are as hot as ever.

Ryoma just smirks up at him and loses his first kiss.

By all standards, it's a messy, rough, more-teeth-than-tongue kiss, and Ryoma's as inexperienced as Akutsu might be, and they kiss like they're breathing each other in and sometimes it's soft, sometimes Ryoma tastes blood, and Akutsu's unbearably long limbs and body and strength hold Ryoma to him as those wild eyes are closed in some semblance of gentleness.

It's when Ryoma puts his arms around Akutsu, too, that Akutsu pushes Ryoma off, glares at him and walks off.

Ryoma doesn't see him again.

Practice starts.

School starts.

Ryoma feels like he's been set free. He can play as much as he wants, and his oyaji is definitely back to playing with him again, and he gets a lot more chances to say "mada mada dane".

He doesn't think about Akutsu as much as possible.

A month later Ryoma's walking back home from school, like he does every day. Sakuno is walking with him, and he doesn't really mind her presence anymore, what difference does it make anyway.

Summer ended. Monsoon began. It drizzles sometimes in the evenings. The street courts are a lot more lively now, and Momoshiro and Ryoma frequent them as much as possible.

"It might rain today, Ryoma-kun," Sakuno says, looking up at the sky, golden with the sunset, maroon with the blood.

"Yeah," Ryoma replies. His tennis bag feels heavy against his shoulder today for some reason.

"I have an umbrella with me, so we could share, if you don't mind...?"

"Sure."

Ryoma knows Sakuno's blushing with happiness. He couldn't care less.

They're walking down the road Ryoma usually takes, and Ryoma's thinking about dinner and his father's best shots when he quite literally runs into Akutsu, who's standing outside a shop, looking at everything offered in the window.

Sakuno recognizes him at first sight and goes still in shock.

"Watch where you're going, bastard," Akutsu breathes down at him.

"Mada mada dane," Ryoma says, and doesn't meet his eye.

Akutsu grabs his arms before Ryoma can take another step away from him. "I said, _watch where you're going._"

"And I said _mada mada dane,_ Akutsu. Let go of me."

Sakuno's wondering whether to cry for help. Ryoma doesn't look like he needs it, though.

Akutsu whirls Ryoma around to face him and...

Sakuno has never seen anybody kiss as roughly and passionately as Ryoma and Akutsu.

The three of them walk together (Ryoma won't let Sakuno run away to cry), and Akutsu's jealous but keeps it to himself because he has no right to be after a month of leaving Ryoma hanging and Sakuno's wondering why she's going to Ryoma's house at all.

But they're not going there.

They're going to the courts.

Ryoma turns to Akutsu when they get there, and punches him.

Sakuno cries out in shock.

Ryoma says, "Ryuuzaki, you're the witness, okay?"

"To... what?"

"This guy getting what he deserves."

Akutsu, on his part, is grinning madly. He's still standing. Nothing Ryoma can do with his fists will get him down.

Sakuno watches as Ryoma and Akutsu talk, then fight, and then kiss and she takes her leave and Ryoma lets her go and she wants to know why Ryoma would love someone who injured him the first time he saw him but she doesn't ask it.

As she walks home a smile forms on her face even though she's sad.

It's because it's the first time she saw Ryoma smile in a long time, too.


End file.
